(Blog readers please note that Father Henderson is a 2009 Graduate of General Theological Seminary currently serving a parish in Connecticut–KSH)<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I joined a church that valued tradition and yet was engaged with modernity. I joined a church that embraced the timelessness of dignity and beauty. I joined a church that was engaged theologically and reasonably rather than emotionally in issues of doctrine and order. I joined a church that was a true blend of Catholic and Reformed. I joined a church that valued the uniformities of the Prayer Book even as it explored how to plumb its depths in manifold ways. I joined a church that was sacramentally grounded. I joined a church that believed that how we pray says something about what we believe.
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Just as when I went to General [Seminary], finding the Episcopal Church was a joy and it felt exactly like where I was called to be. I felt at home and it was a place that made sense because there was a there there.<\/p>\n
I am not sure where the there is now.<\/p>\n
As I talk to priests too happy to ignore rubrics and ordination vows to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church because they have decided their sense of \u201cwelcome\u201d\u009d is more important than the church\u2019s call to common identity,<\/p>\n
as I attended a Diocesan Convention at which we sang treacly hymns with narcissistic lyrics,<\/p>\n
as I talk to priests in pitch battles in their dioceses about baptizing in the name of the Trinity,<\/p>\n
as I attend Eucharists where priests make up the Eucharistic Prayer on the spot (\u201cmeal of power\u201d\u009d not Body and Blood and \u201cthe systems of the world are broken\u201d\u009d at the Fraction),<\/p>\n
and as I watch the Church one more time hurtle into a divisive squabble, I am feeling profoundly out of place.<\/p>\n
The Church that is slashing funding for Christian formation and youth ministry while hurtling toward… \u201c[the Communion of the Unbaptized]\u201d\u009d is not the Church I thought I was joining. The Church that has a diocesan convention at which we sing \u201cShine, Jesus Shine\u201d\u009d and ignore the Prayer Book is not the Church I thought I was joining. The Church that is defining sainthood as anyone who has done something good and worthy rather than someone who has done good and worthy things because of their faith in Christ is not the Church I thought I was joining.<\/p>\n